


Don't Be A Hero

by KateLouisaRose



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Gore, Self-Insert Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 21:32:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KateLouisaRose/pseuds/KateLouisaRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each episode of Zombies, Run! from your perspective, Runner 5. A chapter per mission taking place alongside the main plot with a hint of back story and character relationships. Updates will be posted as I complete each mission!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just started running using the fantastic app Zombies, Run! 2 and at first I wanted to do a closer character study of Sam Yao, but I think we all started creating a back story for ourselves as Runner 5. Since the game is so immersive I found that the story was best told from the runner's perspective, so here we go, this is me pandering to my own fanatical fantasies of what life in Abel Township would be like for us as Runner 5...

_Mission 1: Jolly Alpha Five Niner_

 

It was the first shower you'd had since leaving the military base. Your first cup of tea in three days. You stand in your assigned room in the bunker beneath Abel Township, naked and shivering, staring at the headset left on the small chest of drawers. Fighting nausea, you dress slowly in the standard issue track suit; the number 5 emblazoned in blood red lettering on the front.

There are two guards positioned outside the entrance to the bunker but they do not try to stop you as you walk out into the dusk, out across the scarred expanse of earth that was once a park.

Somewhere in the wilderness, beyond this small pocket of civilisation, in the mangled wreckage there lies the body of your pilot. Lying, you hope, resting, you hope, not shuffling slowly towards you, sick with hatred and hunger. You hope for many things.

The township is small, you can see the crude edges of the broken fence; all that separates you from the crawling darkness which infringes the boundaries of this sanctuary. The central control tower is one of the highest points for miles. There is a futuristic elegance in the sliding doors and glass walls, but inside small figures work a plethora of dials and buttons, faces sickly and drawn in the blinking lights of the controls.

You knock on the furthest door just as it opens. A gaunt figure steps into the corridor, she is beautiful in the way of mothers and business women; hardened and calculating, a small hint of sadness creeping into the weary smile she gives you.

"Runner 5, good to see you." Dr Myers says, carefully tucking a packet of tissues into the pocket of her lab coat. Her eyes are sharp and clear, but dry. "I guess you're looking for Sam? He's in there but, be kind to him." You nod, wary but already knowing what you will find as you open the door.

The control room is dark; a young man is hunched over on a swivel chair, gazing blankly at a monitor which shows the empty, echoing halls of the hospital you ran through earlier that day. His eyes are fixed, unseeingly, on the body of a woman curled against the wall. Her back is riddled with bullet wounds but none of them bleed. A chunk is missing from her shoulder. She is recently dead, previously lifeless. The flesh had already begun to rot when you saw her but in life she might have been pretty. The killing shot seeps a sticky black discharge from the brain. There is very little left of her right leg; zombies have no qualms regarding cannibalism.

The picture flickers and the man blinks at last, tears collecting in the corners of his dark, gentle eyes. A hoard of zombies has begun to convene around Alice's body, intent on finishing what is left.

"Sam," you say at last, and the man jumps. You apologise but he waves it off.

"Runner 5!" Sam says brightly, but his smile quivers with grief at the familiar name. You pull up a swivel chair. "I never asked," Sam says suddenly, "what's your name?" You tell him and he nods, eyes misty again.

"I'm sorry," you murmur. "About her, about Alice, you must have been close." Sam scrubs a hand over his face.

"We were..." He sighs shakily. "We were close. Very close. Very close and I think I- I might have loved her. I still do." He makes to turn and look at the monitor again but you reach over and switch it off before he can see a zombie cracking open Alice's rib cage with a wet crunch.

"Why do you torture yourself?" You ask, but know already that it is a stupid question.

"Because I can't let her go. We don't get a chance to let people go when they never really leave." Sam replies, and you place a hand on his shoulder wordlessly.

"Tea?" You ask. Sam smiles genuinely for the first time.

"Gasping." He replies.

 

When you come back Sam is wiping his eyes with a balled up tissue from the Doctor. The newly created radio station is on in the background and Sam is laughing tearfully at the two hapless presenters.

"They're pretty good." You say, handing him a chipped mug you filled from the machine in the break room you passed earlier.

“They’re great. It takes a lot of courage to find humour in this place.” Sam replies with a broken smile. “You should get some rest; they’ll probably send you out tomorrow.” You nod, terror already seizing your limbs.

“You’ll be OK.” Sam says quietly. “Run well and run fast, I’ll be talking your ear off the whole time.” You smile. Sam makes a show of throwing the balled up tissue into the bin and grins at you. “Thanks,” he says, and you take the hand he extends to you and shake it firmly. Sam wordlessly sends you to bed and you give him a clumsy mock-salute. As you leave you hear him murmur something, it takes you a while to realise what he’s said, and then you think that it was as much for his benefit as yours. You suddenly feel a great surge of pity for the man seated behind the desk in the dark with the blinking lights, repeating his hopeless mantra; “everything will be fine”.


	2. Chapter 2

_Mission 2: Lay of the Land_

Runner 7 is a broad, well mannered man creeping into middle age; there are patches of silver like areas of stripped paint on old motorcars appearing in his auburn hair. As the imposing gates are raised, his quiet sobriety quells your anxiety at leaving the safety of the township.

He runs like he talks; deliberately, and with a strange calmness. In the manner adopted by large animals, Runner 7 moves with a consistent, loping stride beside you. His presence is a comfort in the terrifying ambiguity of the world outside Abel. As he leads you around the perimeter, you begin to feel more at ease in the constant danger that surrounds you. Even with several close calls you arrive back at the gates feeling more confident in your ability to fulfil the role entrusted to you by the people of Abel. Knowing that there were those that doubted you when you arrived only serves to make you more determined to prove your worth. The kindness of these people has touched you, their compassion and welcome seems strangely accommodating given their situation. Finding out that you won’t be able to return to the military base any time soon suddenly doesn’t seem like a sentence, more like an opportunity.

As you run laps inside the fences later that afternoon, Sam chats to you through the headset, occasionally interspersing your idle conversation with snippets from the radio, his own soft laughter layered over the presenters’ playful banter. Sometimes Sam will intervene with your training, prompting short bursts of speed by saying things like “zombies detected”. You swear at him quite a lot when he keeps doing it until you’re red-faced and panting heavily. There is a strange friendship forming between the two of you, an indefinable comfort derived from knowing you are beginning to matter to someone.

You sleep well that night, fitfully, despite an inescapable sensation that there is something greater looming on the horizon. In another life you would have called it the sleep of the dead, but the dead no longer sleep, and the living carry this knowledge with them to their beds, unable to leave it behind to truly find their rest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (So I got the title of this fic from Zombieland, just putting that out there.) Please comment if you have the time!


	3. Chapter 3

_Mission 3: Distraction_

 

‘Here’s a noisemaker, run like your life depends on it because it quite literally does, and try not to die.’ Is essentially what Sam told you as you set out moments ago, terrified and exuberated with Runner 8 treading a constant speed at your side. Runner 8 is pretty, fierce and really determined not to like you; at least not without a good reason.

As you begin to lead the zoms away from Abel the sweet and accommodating façade of Runner 8 begins to slip. She appears to have an agenda, one which concerns finding out as much about why you are here as possible. She also hasn’t considered the possibility that _you_ don’t quite know why you’re here, either.

When Runner 8 produces a semi-automatic rifle and blows the brains out of several zombies which were seconds away from making your warm flesh into a light snack, you begin to feel a little more comforted by her presence. That is, until she turns off her transmitter…

First a cough, then a rattle, then a moan. You feel the first twinges of panic in your gut as Sam’s words begin to sink in. You are utterly alone with someone exhibiting the first signs of the zombie plague. Well, shit.

As it turns out, Runner 8’s cough was just that and nothing more. Her callous interrogation, however, still leaves you feeling cold and indignant. You try to put yourself in the place of the people in the township, and it seems understandable that they might have their reservations, but Runner 8’s immediate mistrust stings. You can’t help but want to be liked, and find yourself returning to the Abel a few paces behind Runner 8, hurt and angry. A few people try to usher you into the newly established hospital tents for a routine check-up but you brush them aside; intent on returning to the bunker and washing the grime and flecks of zombie viscera out of your hair with what little water is available. You dump your rucksack by the supplies tent and hurry across the compound, disappearing beneath the earth.

You’re standing beneath the tepid spray of your shower, looking down and counting new bruises colouring your flesh when Sam knocks on your door.

“Runner Five? It’s Sam. Sam Yao. Can I come in?” You shake your head, flinging droplets of water.

“Just a sec,” you reply, smiling despite everything. “I’m crying on the floor of the shower.”

“You’re what?” Sam calls with a smile in his voice.

“Crying on the floor of the shower, like they do in the films. It looked fulfilling.” Sam laughs and you smile wider, stepping out of the shower and drying off; throwing on some clothes and opening the door while towelling your hair. Sam’s smile falters for a split second when he sees you, only to return even wider and brighter than before.

“Did something happen? People were saying you stormed off, you seemed upset.” You shake your head again.

“I’m not upset, really. Things were just getting to me a bit.”

Sam nods, then produces something from behind his back. “I brought you tea,” he says, gingerly handing it over.

“Well come on in,” you reply, holding the door open. Sam salutes, just like you did the first day you met him, and wanders into your room.

“So what’s getting you down?” Sam asks, seating himself on your bunk. You slump down beside him and butt your head into his shoulder.

“Zombie apocalypse, the usual.” Sam chuckles softly. “I’m fine.” You reiterate. There’s a comfortable silence during which you sip your tea.

“Could use some sugar.” You say.

“We don’t have any sugar, it’s rationed.” Sam points out. You groan.  

There’s a small moment of silence, and Sam makes a strange half-sigh half-groan and you lift your head. “Well, I’d better be getting back to the comms shack, you sure you’re alright?” You nod and smile and Sam gives your shoulder a squeeze before standing. You wave him out of the door.

“Bye, Sam. Thanks for the tea.”

“My pleasure,” Sam replies, ducking out of the door. “Bye, Alice.”

You set the tea down, a dull hollowness aching in the pit of your stomach. You let the tea go cold. 


	4. Chapter 4

_Mission 4: A Lost Child_

Today is cold, the wind a biting chill whipping the back of your neck as you search the sparse trees for the direction of the noise. You don’t need Sam to guide you, the child is loud enough to find within a quarter-mile radius. This makes you uneasy, knowing that you are unlikely to be the only one that can hear her.

The girl is small and frightened, with red cheeks pinched with cold and hunger, her hands and face smeared with mud. Despite your general aversion to children, you feel suddenly protective of this little girl stranded in the middle of a veritable no-man’s-land. When the stranger tries to take her from you, you fight for her. ‘Stranger danger’ echoes like a mantra in your head, the remnant of bygone days of childhood innocence. You feel a sudden pang that this girl will be brought up learning to avoid a very different kind of predator than those that lurked in the shadows of your primary years.

There is no doubt that Ed is Molly’s father. She has his eyes, his nose. The girl lights up with him, all traces of fear and uncertainty gone. Molly tenses up the moment you have to run with her. The zombs are pretty fast, but you are faster, even with the tiny person clinging onto your back and shrieking in your ear. Even as you watch Ed and Molly disappearing on the motorbike back towards Abel, with the heavy pack on your back and zombies not far behind, you realise that you will be OK. You are stronger, you are faster, and you are human. That much still prevails.  


End file.
